Page:Speeches And Writings MKGandhi.djvu/775

 Suspension of mass civil disobedience and sub- sidence of excitement are necessary for further progress, indeed, indispsnsable to prevent further retrogression. I hope, therefore, that by suspension every Congress man or woman will not only feel disappointed but he or she will feel relieved of the burden of unreality and of national sin.

Let the opponent glory in our humiliation or so called defeat. It is better to be charged with cowardice and weakness than to be guilty of our oath and sm against God. It is million times better to appear untrue before the world than to be untrue to ourselves.

And so, for me the suspension of mass civil dis- obedience and other minor activities that were calculated to keep up excitement is not enough penance for my having been the instrument, howsoever involuntary, of the brutal violence by the people at Chauri Chaura.

I must undergo personal cleansing. I must become a fitter instrument able to register the slightest variation in the moral atmosphere about me. My prayers must have much deeper truth and humility about them than they evidence. And for me there is nothing so helpful and cleansing as a fast accompanied by the necessary mental co-operation,

I know that the mental attitude is everything. Just as a prayer may be merely a mechanical intonation as of a bird, so may a fast be a mere mechanical torture of the flesh. Such mechanical contrivances are valueless for the purpose intended, Again just as a mechanical chant may result in the modula- tion of voice, a mechnical fast may result in purifying the body. Neither will touch the soul within.

But a fast undertaken for fuller self-expression, for

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